An Early Antislavery Statement: 1676

AN EARLY ANTISLAVERY STATEMENT: 1676 By Edwin B. Bronner* Among the early Quaker missionaries to the New World was Alice Curwen, who with her husband Thomas spent several years in the 1670's traveling among the new Friends groups, offering support through preaching, visiting, and sharing their hardships. While studying the writings of the ministers who paid pastoral visits to the Friends in East New Jersey, before there were any Quaker settlements in West New Jersey, an obscure tract entitled A Relation of the Labour, Travail and Suffering of that faithful Servant of the Lord Alice Curwen, (n.p., 1680) came to my attention .1 Printed opposite a letter to an East New Jersey Ranter named Thomas White was a letter written by AHce Curwen criticizing attitudes toward slaves in Barbados. Clearly this is a very early statement against slavery by a woman, and deserves to be mentioned along with other seventeenth-century protests. George Fox was probably the first Quaker to voice criticism of slavery, in a letter addressed "To Friends Beyond Sea, that Have Blacks and Indian Slaves," written in 1657.2 He caUed upon Quakers to be merciful to their slaves, wrote of the equality of all mankind in the eyes of God, and of the Hberty and freedom which come through divine power. While Fox was in Barbados in 1671 he asked Friends to consider freeing their slaves after thirty years of service. This suggestion was published in 1676 in a tract entitled Gospel Family Order, in which he also wrote "Christ, I say, shed his blood for them [the blacks] as weU as for you; . . . and hath enHghtened them as weU *Professor of History, Curator of the Quaker Collection, and Librarian at Haverford College. He is currently working on a study of Quakers in the Middle Colonies in the colonial period. 1.Donald G. Wing in his Short-Title Catalogue lists the tract (M857) under the name of Anne Martindall (for Martindell) as author. There are copies in the Library, Friends House, London, anodier in the Quaker Collection , Haverford College Library, and in several other locations. 2.Thomas E. Drake, Quakers and Slavery in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), p. 5. 47 18QUAKER HISTORY he hath enHghtened you."3 WilUam Edmundson, who had visited Barbados with Fox, returned a few years later, and got into trouble with the authorities because he preached to the slaves as weU as others. In 1676 he sent out a pastoral letter to Friends in America in which he raised questions regarding slavery. He added a postscript to the epistle, "And many of you count it unlawful to make slaves of the Indians: and if so, then why the Negroes?"4 AHce Curwen's letter reflects similar principles, although her reference to emancipation of slaves is somewhat more veiled than in the writings of the others. She was presumably writing in Barbados, and the fact that island authorities had already begun to restrict Quaker preaching and activity on behalf of slaves might have some bearing. Edmundson wrote from Newport, Rhode Island, and Fox from England. AHce Curwen (ca. 1619-1679), whose maiden name is not known, was born at BaycUff-in-Furness on the western shore of Morecambe Bay, a few miles south of Ulverston and the Quaker center at Swarthmoor HaU. Her husband Thomas (1610-1680), whom she married in 1641, or near that date, came from the same village. It is likely that the couple were swept into the new Quaker movement in 1652 when Fox made his first visit to the Furness area.5 Little is known about the Curwens before they set sail for America in 1675, but apparently they were in difficulty with the authorities from time to time like other Quakers, for they had to wait until Thomas was released from prison before undertaking the journey. AHce Curwen had been deeply touched by the persecution of Friends in Boston, and felt drawn to go there and suffer in the same fashion if necessary. In 1676, while in Boston, they were jailed by the authorities for holding meetings in violation of regulations. Although they were publicly whipped, the power of the Lord "enabled...